First Year Experience

This semester Amber Davies-Sloan and I are working together as FYE103 Coordinators. We seek to build an even better first-year experience for incoming freshman here at Yavapai College. This Friday we will be attending an all-day workshop at Paradise Valley Community College. Faculty from Arizona will be gathering to hear new learner-centered methods for teaching as well as in listening to a MindTap presentation from Cengage.

What is best for our students? So far we have learned that at Yavapai College, offering a New Student Orientation and a First Year Experience class each dramatically increased student retention. The college has responded with a mandatory Student Orientation for incoming students in Fall 2016. Rules are being set right now to determine how this will look and which students will be included, but good data is actually being implemented into policy. That is great news!

The next step on the agenda will be considering whether to make the FYE103 class mandatory. Is that reasonable? We have data to show it is highly beneficial, but mandatory is a huge step for us. If the college does make a first-year experience class mandatory, who should it be mandatory for? Would a 1 credit hour option be a good idea? These will be the topics of discussion for next year, and perhaps years to come.

Coming in February, Dean Holbrook, Amber, and I will also be attending the 35th Annual FYE Conference. Here we hope to gain wisdom and data from similar sized two-year colleges to help us make some recommendations. Please also feel free to share your ideas with us. Perhaps you worked at a similar college elsewhere in the United States, and you have some success and/or failure stories to share. I for one realize that sometimes I learn just as much from a failure as from a success, and that is what we are seeking for ourselves, our college, and our students.

Working with quality administration, faculty, and staff here at Yavapai College continues to be a blessing in my life. Yes, I get frustrated and fatigued at times, but truly I have never worked in a more rewarding environment. And teaching FYE103 is one of the highlights of my career. There is no class in which I have had as much freedom to be a learner-centered instructor. We get to watch mini-videos, play learning games, dive deep in journal writing, bring in outside speakers, take college tours, and so on. If this class sounds like one you would like to support, teach, or build up in any way, please let Dean, Amber, or I know. We are eager to hear from you.